New Hampshire International Speedway is a 1.058 mile
oval track which has hosted NASCAR racing since the 1990s. It is
commonly referred to by its location, Loudon. (Turn 4 and the north
grandstand are actually in the neighboring community of Canterbury.)
The track was opened in June 1990, after 9 months of construction after
the Bahre family purchased the Bryar Motorsports Park in the region and
redeveloped the popular motorcycle circuit into a multi-purpose track,
with NASCAR added to the popular motorcycle and SCCA races on the
complex. It was the largest speedway in New England, and later expansion
has made this the largest sports venue of any type in the region. NASCAR
made its debut at the track in July 1990, with a Busch Series race won
by Tommy Ellis. For 3 years, the Busch Series hosted a pair of races at
the track each year.
These races were successful and led to Loudon earning a spot on the
Winston Cup schedule in 1993. Rusty Wallace won the inaugural Slick 50
300 in July of that year.
A second 300 mile race was added to the schedule in 1997, taking one of
the spots that North Wilkesboro once had on the schedule after that
track was sold in an estate sale. The race is held in the middle of
September, and in 2004, Loudon became the first race in NASCAR's Chase
for the Cup "playoff" series.
The track also hosted open wheel racing for 7 years, hosting CART from
1992-1995, then the Indy Racing League from 1996-1998.
In 2000, the track was the site of a pair of fatal accidents which took
the lives of promising young drivers. In May, while practicing for a
Busch Series race, Adam Petty perished when his throttle stuck in the
middle of a turn. When Winston Cup made their first appearance, a
similar fate befell 1998 Rookie of the Year Kenny Irwin, Jr.. For safety
reasons, track owners decided to run restrictor plates on the cars
during their return trip to the speedway in September 2000, making it
the first track outside of Daytona and Talladega to use them. It would
be the last one as well; a boring race won by Jeff Burton, which had no
lead changes, was the result of the experiment. It was the first
wire-to-wire race since the 1970's.
The 2001 New Hampshire 300 was originally scheduled for September 16,
the Sunday after the September 11 terrorist attacks. NASCAR initially
announced that the race would be held as scheduled, but finally the
event was postponed until the Friday after Thanksgiving. There was much
concern about the weather, but race day turned out to be unseasonably
mild.
Two changes were made. In 2002, in an effort to increase competitive
racing, the track's corners were turned into a progressive banking
system, as the apron was paved and became part of the track, and the
track's banking was varied from 4 degrees in the lower two lanes to 12
degrees. The addition of SAFER barriers to the corner walls was made in
2003.
During the September 2003 Sylvania 300, an incident occurred at this
track involving Dale Jarrett where his car was stuck in the middle of
the race track and was in danger of getting hit while other cars raced
back to the caution flag. As a result, NASCAR banned racing back to the
caution flag, resulting in a "free pass" (popularly referred to as "the
lucky dog") in which the first car behind the leader not on the lead lap
would get their lap back during each caution period in all of NASCAR's
national and regional series.
In mid-May 2006, Loudon was one of many New England communities which
experienced damaging floods after a week of near-record rainfall.
Several roads and bridges were washed out near the speedway. The infield
was flooded, as was the track itself (while a road racing event was
going on.) The facility also experienced flooding in October 2005.
